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"Ciao!" Welcome to the newsletter that is convinced Pavarotti preferred more to eat than sing. "Only In Italy!"

The first time I saw grappa was in 1999, my uncle and friend drank this bottom waste from the wine deposit after fermentation, whatever the crap was. My uncle offered some to his son and said go walk. Giuseppe I.

Thanks for the email, Giuseppe.

Forget the bailout money. Grappa should be distributed at the financial markets worldwide so that everyone will calm down and relax!

Enjoy the issue, keep writing and Grazie!

Tanti Saluti, "Only In Italy" Staff

Home Inherited By Family Murderer

Parma - October 17, 2008 - A man who confessed to murdering his parents has inherited their home, the one in which he shot them dead.

Ferdinando Carretta, who was released from a mental hospital two years ago, reached an out-of-court settlement on Wednesday with his aunts, who had contested his ownership of the property.

"Seeing as how the flat is rented, I'll take the rent," he told newspapers. "Then, it's likely that I'll sell it." Under the terms of the settlement Carretta will inherit the property, valued at 310,000 Euros (393,000 USD), and some 40,000 Euros in cash.

Carretta was arrested in 1998 in London following a routine traffic check nine years after the killings in his home town of Parma. Soon afterwards he confessed to murdering his parents and his brother in a television interview.

He said he had long hated his father, an accountant, and murdered his mother because she was a witness. He then shot his brother because he was convinced he would turn against him. All three bodies have never been found.

Several of the details Carretta provided during the interview, and later to police and prosecutors, failed to square with the known facts or were highly improbable.

However in 1999 he was acquitted on the grounds of not being in his right mind at the time of the offence, and the court ordered that he be sent to a secure psychiatric institution.

He told the newspaper he now wanted a secure job and a steady girlfriend.

"Ahhh", sit back and relax folks; the Italian judicial system hard at work creating the perfect civil environment.

Whoever says crime doesn't pay should have an espresso and a little chat with Ferdinando.

"Ferdinando Carretta...reached an out-of-court settlement on Wednesday with his aunts, who had contested his ownership of the property." "Cornuto", who needs the aggravation? They could have fought for the property and risked being buried in the yard. Did the out-of-court settlement include a stop to the family reunion invitations?

"Seeing as how the flat is rented, I'll take the rent." That's a house where parties are out of the question and the tenants make extra-sure the rent is promptly paid on the first of the month.

"He told the newspaper he now wanted a secure job and a steady girlfriend." Oh, ladies, he's available.

Rushdie: I'm In Less Danger Than Roberto Saviano

Paris - October 16, 2008 - The Camorra death sentence on Gomorra author Roberto Saviano is a greater threat than an Iranian fatwah, Salman Rushdie said Friday.

"The Mafia poses a much more serious problem than the one I had to face," said Rushdie, who was condemned to death by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989.

"Saviano is in terrible danger, worse than me," he said.

The Anglo-Indian novelist, in Paris to promote his latest book The Enchantress of Florence, said he met Saviano in New York in April. He said the FBI believed Saviano's life to be in danger in America too, given the transatlantic reach of the Italian Mafia. Rushdie supported Saviano's desire to leave Italy but said he would have to choose a foreign haven carefully.

"Without doubt, he'll have to leave Italy but he must choose his future destination very prudently," Rushdie said.

Saviano said this week he wanted to leave Italy after two years in witness protection, to "get his life back" and start writing again.

The Italian government has urged the writer to stay in the country as a symbol of the anti-Mafia fight and sources close to the writer say he has not fully made up his mind. Earlier this week the media reported a Camorra bomb plot to slay the writer by the end of the year but the informant who reportedly gave the tip-off subsequently retracted.

Saviano's 2006 expose' Gomorra, which has been turned into a film bidding for the Oscars, has enraged the Camorra.

On a serious note, after reading the chilling book "Gomorrah", it becomes impossible to see Italy, and the world market, in the same way again.

The Camorra of today:
- They hide weapons in former military barracks in Eastern Europe,
- sell toxic waste,
- launder money through diamonds,
- make deals with South American and Nigerian drug cartels,
- siphon off European Union farm subsidies,
- and set up legal fronts like clothing stores, bars and tourism outfits all over Europe.

"Porca vacca", Naples is so tense you begin to realize, that if you throw a rock from your Naples hotel window there's a possibility you'll start a gang war.

"Without doubt, he'll have to leave Italy but he must choose his future destination very prudently." Saviano would be in less danger if he goes out for a tea with his pal Rushdie in a cafe in Iran.

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Milan - October 16, 2008 - Milan police on Thursday arrested 40 people in a probe into a suspected funeral 'cartel' paying bribes to find out when corpses were ready for burial.

In the probe, codenamed Charon after the mythological ferryman of the dead, police said they found evidence of "a 1,000 euro kickback to nurses for every still-warm body on the slab".

"This criminal association formed a cartel to claim a stranglehold on the Milan funeral business," one investigator said.

The Codacons consumer protection association said such rackets were not confined to Milan.

"This illicit business generates an estimated turnover of 3.5 billion euros a year, pushing funeral costs up by a third".

It said "thousands" of funeral parlors across the country paid to beat their rivals to bodies.

"Cavolo", you have a thick head, nurse. I couldn't care less you have a cousin in the business.

So, how does death function in Italy? Obviously, you start with the sympathetic rat-whore nurse who's lucky she gets her shoes on the right feet to attend to your funeral arrangements.

The next step is the undignified plastering of funeral posters all over town as if they were election posters.

Then the stack of long boring telegrams arrive. "Sta pippa", hard to believe in this day and age the telegraph service in Italy is still used. Luckily, they're no longer delivered by mule or covered wagon. You may ask yourself the stupid question, "Haven't the Italians ever heard of Hallmark?" Unfortunately, the greeting card industry never took off in Italy for it couldn't rely on the incredibly supersonic services of the postal system.

After the celebration of the funeral mass which is just a regular Sunday Mass heard on a weekday, the coffin is carried back out to the hearse, while the family stands and receives condolences from the ungrateful and hypocritical friends and family the dearly departed couldn't have cared less about while he/she was alive.

"...police said they found evidence of a 1,000 euro kickback to nurses for every still-warm body on the slab." "Cazzo", don't give the 'cartel' satisfaction. Choose cremation and make sure your relatives scatter a part of your ashes in your nurse's hair.

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